


devil you know

by agonies (Hyb)



Series: isolated incidents [2]
Category: NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mystery Spot (Supernatural) Fusion, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Death Not Permanent, Gen, Grieving, Happy Demonversary 2k19, Resurrection, The Brothers Lee, The Family Business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 00:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19452448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/pseuds/agonies
Summary: Every Tuesday Mark watches Taeyong die.And then, finally, it's Wednesday again.





	devil you know

**Author's Note:**

> ((heed tags))

Anger sustains Mark for a long time, like after Lucas died. It burns out every rational fear. He's lived a hundred Tuesdays, and a hundred more, and watched Taeyong die every single one. Lived half a year in a pocket dimension of the Trickster's making thinking Taeyong was already gone. After a while he realizes this is how their father must have felt. When he was remote, absent even when he was in the room, and Mark just a scared kid staring at the clenched line of his jaw. 

He loses Taeyong. He keeps convincing himself until the end that there has to be a way, the right scrap of lore, a relic, a spell. A deal, he'd make any deal. He finally gets Taeyong to admit he's afraid, to fight for his own life, and it's still not enough. He buries what the hellhounds leave behind.

Mark prays and the only one to answer is Yuta, who says he can't bring Taeyong back. The palaces of Hell are beyond his reach.

“Because you're just a trickster,” Mark says numbly as they share a case of beer outside another motel. He can't remember what state he's in. Or the day. Johnny keeps leaving him messages. He worries. Mark can't promise him he won't do terrible things, if it means his brother will be next to him again.

All his years as a hunter, son of hunters, and now he's ashamed to think that it's a monster like Yuta keeping him sane. Waltzing in unannounced for a slice of pie at a roadside diner, or helping him with a case once because, in Yuta's words, his favorite ice cream was recalled and he needed to vent. 

_I'm giving you a gift_ , he'd said before he made the Tuesdays end. _You're not ready to let go._

At first, he keeps on playing Taeyong's music in the car, from his book of old CDs thicker than a bible. Taeyong never used to let him drive, and he has to adjust the seat over and over but it still doesn't feel right. His legs are too long, his hands won't settle on the wheel. Later, months later, he lets the silence sink in like rain. He can hear the road noise, the engine, but not his brother.

Their dad always said monsters were real. It was Taeyong who waited until they were alone to bring Mark rice pudding and sit on the end of his bed and tell him he'd never let anything hurt him. Promise.

Mark can't save Taeyong and he can't bring him back, but an angel does. A soldier of heaven with vast raven wings who looks at Mark, vessel of Lucifer, and calls him unclean.

“He sounds like a bitch,” Yuta muses where he's popped into Mark's room and is stealing the red sour worms from his bag. The television buzzes an old episode of Buffy but unlike Taeyong, Yuta doesn't tell him to change the channel.

There's a groan, a crash like a lamp falling. Yuta's brows climb in delight. “Is he fucking your brother?"

“You're like a parasite,” Mark tells him, and crams a pillow over his own head.

Ten looks more kindly on Mark, over time. He listens. He tells Mark that he’s a man of wisdom and compassion, and that God's plan has placed a greater burden on him than most mortals could withstand. He tells him he's had a thousand thousand brothers, but Mark and Taeyong are his first friends, and they're weak and confusing and stubborn but he's grateful for them anyway. After they save the world, Ten crashes through the gates of Hell again like a meteor. 

He brings Lucas back.

And for three days, it's happier than Mark thinks he'll ever be again. There are tears. Mark holds him and he's so warm, Lucas was always like the summer.

But Lucas remembers dying. He remembers being dragged to Hell even though it was never where he belonged and God should have cared. He still _believes_ in God. So does Mark. But he looks at Mark and he can see how the past five years have changed him. Made him brittle and hard and untrusting. It shows on his face, the knowing. Lucas was always a terrible liar. Mark always loved that about him, like his laugh and his big hands and the way he sighed when he was dreaming.

“Can you make him forget?” he gasps into Yuta's shoulder while Lucas sleeps inside.

"Everything?"

He knows what he's asking. "Even me."

Yuta touches his hair and it feels like forgiveness. “I can,” he says. And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> celebrating one year locked in this cycle of retribution with my junior demon, uwu. here's this from our evidence trail on cc
> 
>   
> [curiouscat ](https://curiouscat.me/taeminsgucci)


End file.
